Knowing how many avid Media Center users there are here at Digital Home Canada, I wanted to let everyone know that the latest hacks for Windows 7 Media Center are now published. It's been a heck of a battle, one that has been fought on many fronts and I'm happy to announce that Canadian high definition in Media Center is working better than ever before!
The highlights:
- I've packaged and tested a new hack (easiest hack yet!) that enables ATSC and QAM in Canada with Windows 7 Media Center. This has been tested by myself and a handful of others on x86 and x64 versions of the RTM release. Thanks for your help!
- Included in the hack is a single-click batch file that add US OTA listings to your Media Center, providing subchannel support and enabling the HD preferences in Media Center recording logic.
-Pete
Edit by Dr.Dave March 9, 2014: The Microsoft links are no longer available. Here is a direct link to Peter Near's blog:
Peter - are you still using an HD Homerun for your ATSC via QAM as you posted in the beta hacks? Or are you straight into a PC card?
I'm looking to upgrade my Vista MCE for a few things:
New analog tuner (have a Hauppauge PVR-500 that makes me limit ram to < 4GB) - I'm considering the Hauppauge 2250
Attic antenna: I live in central Toronto, but only get the local stations. I can either wire coax down to my media centre or do it via HDHomerun with a shorter coax run. This could replace my ATI HDTVWonder that is working ok
Upgraded OS of course
Can you post some specs of what you're doing now. Ideally, I'd like to keep dual analog and get dual ATSC, including the US channels OTA.
I'm using both actually, Windows 7 can use multiple tuners. I have the HDHomerun with two ATSC tuners, and a VBox Cats Eye 164e with two ATSC tuners (the VBox has a bug where only 1 tuner shows up in Windows 7 though).
Yes, I used it and it works great. It is much simplier compared to crack MCE in Vista.
However, there is a bug. I am in Toronto, and the MCE scanned digital channels and allocate channel 9.1 to CITYTV. But it is supposed to be CTV-HD. CITYTV is at 57.1
I have the exact same problem using the QAM to OTA hack with an HDHomeRun in VMC with TV Pack. The HDHomeRun software scan shows City HD on 57.1 and CTV HD on 9.1, but Media Center shows City on 9.1 and CTV is nowhere to be found.
That didn't work for me. 9.1 still popped up as City and 57.1 came up as no signal. It's possible that it's a glitch that has been semi-fixed in Windows 7. Or it's possible I'm just doing something wrong.
I tried it, and it worked. However, all guides are gone after a couple of weeks. And what I can do is to log in as admin, and do all those steps from beginning again. Then guides are back. After a while ,they're gone again....
Sorry about the necropost, but why start a new thread? I finally got around to putting an OTA tuner in my WinMC machine (which is a backup to my main Sage system). Is there any way to get guide data for channels that are OTA only such as NBC Universal Sports (2.2) Thinkbright (17.3) or qubo (51.2 I think)?
In Sage you can get guide data for these channels as long as you can find a channel ID on Zap2it that Sage carries. Is there any similar "hack" with WinMC? For example I can get guide data in Sage for qubo by editing the channel and using ID 54596. I think WinMC uses Zap2it for guide data as well, doesn't it?
Look at the Multiple Listings link in the first post of this thread. There is a file to download and once you run it, it creates an automated task to download the OTA listings for your area before it downloads your Cable or Sat provider listings. I use it myself and it works beautifully (of course I can count on one hand the number of times I've watched RTV, Universal Sports or Thinkbright).
Thanks Jeneral. I haven't watched those channels much either but Universal Sports is starting to carry rugby and I am a rugby fan. They are supposed to by carrying next year's Rugby World Cup - in Canada you have to sub to Sentanta sports ($15/month) to get this and they don't carry many of the matches live. It would be nice if they fixed the blurry visions though! I think Universal Sports did carry some Olympic Sports as well during the Vancouver Olympics.
qubo is very useful if you have young kids, but it does have infomercials and commercials.
Thanks to pnear for these amazing links. This is an old thread, but still a must read for any Canadian 7MC users seeking to get the best out of their system.
So, I have the developer's attention but I don't know what the issues are. The "right" answer is that Microsoft fixes the app. However this isn't looking too likely so we'll see if we can hack it. Can you help me answer this question?
"What is the problem you’re running into in Canada? Does the application install but just not run?"
From someone who's not really looks deeply into it:
When going under Movies, the Netflix icon is not there.
I go through Settings/General/Automatic download options/Download now, and the Netflix plugin does not automagically install.
So i guess the plugin does not install for me. I'm guessing a hack should start with that...
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